In the Glorious Qur'an, “jahannam”
(hell) is mentioned in seventy-seven verses, fifty-one of which is Meccan
and twenty-six Madanian (the verses that were revealed in the city of
Madinah), in order to inform collocutors of divine
revelation about the punishment aspect of
eschatological world and explain the content of styles of
punishment. Hell is narrated in Glorious Qur'an in a very succint
manner. The main theme of it is “fire” and contains boiling water, unfavorable
food, pits and valleys. Almost every detail of hell is mentioned in the verses;
from severity of its fire to its effect, from its fume to its shade, from its
warden's reactions to sinners to sinner's food and drink, their repentance, their state of mind and all of them is pictured as if
they are from a movie scene. Thus, the styles of torments of hell is
not only originated from physical and
biological sources in the context of external factors that
resemble natural events like fume, shade and as nutrients like food,
drink, but also spiritual and psychological sources as being deprived from
ru'yatullah (seeing Allah). This place of torment has seven layers such as
jahannam, jahîm, hawiya, hutama, lazâ, sa`îr, saqar and nineteen
attendants as mentioned in the verse.
This study investigates the reflection of hell to
the hermeneutics acquis regarding the commentary
of scholars of hermeneutics on verses about hell in the
Glorious Qur'an. “Jahannam” (hell) -being originated from the Glorious Qur'an
in Islamic literature- becomes clear with regards to its terminological
meaning; however, it is difficult to claim the same about its lexical meaning.
Scholars of linguistics have different opinions about its etymology. Some claim
that the word has its origin in Arabic, while there are others who claim that
it originates from Persian or Hebrew. Jahannam's, being a word without
inflection, accepting neither feminine gender suffix nor definitiveness prefix,
empirically of feminine gender give rise to the thought that it is a proper
name that is transferred from a foreign language. As a result of the
discussions, there is no doubt that the word became Arabicized and it is a
place of punishment for the evildoers. Terminologically, it is the name of the
fire that is prepared for the ones that are entitled to the torment of
Allah who tantalize Allah's verses and His messengers, polytheists,
wrongdoers, satans and arrogants.
Jahannam has been the subject of study in several
fields throughout the history of Islam. In other fields, jahannam has
been even tried to be visually expressed and been subject of drawings that is
at the level of informing about its degrees and severity. This is because the
presentation of jahannam in the Glorious Qur'an is through the arts of
embodiment, tropology and the like rather than direct expressions and also from
time to time the art of personification is used to give voice to it. Although
jahannam has serious amount of aggregation in Cultural History of Islam we will
limit this to entire corpus of hermeneutics in this paper. Certainly,
concerning the extensity of collected works of hermeneutics, the
impossibility of handling all interpretations is self-evident. Therefore,
the works that are flourished in their fields and the literature belonging to
the second classical period, as we might call, will rather be preferred since
they bring together the written and narrated material up to their time.
The reason to write such a paper is to investigate the
style of interpretation of jahannam, regarding the hermeneutics acquis, which
is portrayed in minds with sui generis lacony in the Glorious Qur'an and
also to determine the reflection of
the scholars of hermeneutics' pedagogical and anthropological
understandings among their own circumstances and living conditions on the
interpretations of the verses. Because Jahannam, being a part of eschatological
world, differs ontologically from the world we live in. To comprehend Jahannam
mentally at cognitive level, the necessity of scholars
of hermeneutics' expansion, description and portrayal
is undeniable. It is certain that while interpreting the verses of
the Glorious Qur'an, the aim of scholar of hermeneutics is
to understand the purpose of Allah and share his findings with society. In this
context, scholar of hermeneutics tackles the problems of his/her
time with his/her scientific, linguistic, sociological and
psychological lore and producing solutions by synthesizing with
revelation. In addition, the verbalist viewpoint of the
scholar, sufistic standpoint and his/her desire to feature the verses
of judgement constitutes his/her interpretation's main theme and at this very
point, Jahannam, containing all of the aforementioned issues in some way, takes
its share from all scholars of hermeneutics' relevant standpoints. Jahannam,
being a matter of faith and abstract, although not suitable for a sound
interpretation, is used as a motivating factor by being commented upon widely
by scholars of hermeneutics for a better description of a believer in this
world of trial. In other words, the process of training that motivates with
heaven and scares with hell, is detailed and shaped by scholars of
hermeneutics' contribution. Therefore, every scholar's interpretation of verses
according to his/her cultural tendencies would be effective for a society's
understanding that live under the same conditions with him/her.
The main reason for a fairly detailed description of Jahannam
in the Glorious Qur'an might be to inform the polytheists, nonbelievers,
hypocrites and the evildoers on the way of rebellion to Allah, the punishment
they will face in the hereafter as a result of their irresponsibilities. For
the sake of dissappearance of uncertainty in the minds, the scenes of torments
are depicted and visualized. The most frequent style of torment in Jahannam,
in fact, the first thing coming to mind when Jahannam is mentioned is the fire.
Since the gruesome of exposure to fire, even in the circumstances of this
world, causes psychological interaction, the fire theme is something
that human beings closely experience in the world and the degree
of its' painfulness, if it happens to be the style of torment, is a component that
human beings have an idea of.
The importance of the study is to draw attention to
judging and ignoring - which is by the effect of modern discourse and
paradigm that is guided by secular worldview, of the classical scholars of
hermeneutics who transferred the interpretation of the Glorious Qur'an
especially on the context of narration and also in terms of acumen although
they interpret in the realms of their cultural anthropologies. For the
interpretation of verses about Islamic Law and transactions or the
ones that are metaphorical or allegorical (in a more classical
expression), although renewing the interpretations is inevitable for the
protection of the Glorious Qur'an's universality and timeliness, the
contribution of tradition to us in the interpretation of definitive
verses of judgement is unignorable. Additionally, in this situation,
rather than ignoring the tradition and disdaining their interpretations
according to conditions of their times, the necessity to gravitate towards
enriching our perspective by reclining upon their transmissions is also
inevitable.
